Growing up, I didn’t realize that the games I spent so much time playing were made in the same town I was going to elementary school — Garland (and Mesquite). Now? I look back to games like id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D with Texas pride and say, “Yeah, we did that.”

While the Apogee name disappeared for awhile after the rise of 3D Realms (which was also Apogee, and this new Apogee kind of isn’t?), that classic logo has been popping up again lately with some nostalgic re-releases like the Apogee Throwback Pack on Steam, which contains Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, Blake Stone: Planet Strike, the original Rise of the Triad and Extreme Rise of the Triad. And if you pre-purchase the upcoming Rise of the Triad remake for $15? You get the $10 retro pack for free. Not a bad deal at all.

That’s a lot of classic properties getting revivals. But as cool as all that stuff is, right now a lot of eyes are on the seemingly high-quality remake of the classic first-person shooter Rise of the Triad.

In talking to the people developing the remake, it’s easy to see that they have a lot of love for the original title. While it’s not being made locally (the developers at Interceptor Entertainment have a “virtual office” and are scattered around the world), it’s being made with its roots at heart. Interceptor isn’t setting out to make some serious first-person shooter to compete with Call of Duty. They just want to make a fast, fun and absolutely ridiculous game with guns, flame walls and ludicrous gibs.

And most importantly, they seem to care a whole heck of a lot about bridging the gap between old and new.

I’ve had a few Twitter conversations with Joe Siegler, a former Apogee/3D Realms employee who worked for the company for almost 17 years, about the company’s history. He has some cool insights into the creation of the classic game, for which he did some level creation, so I wanted to ask him what he thought about the new game.

“[Rise of the Triad] was for many reasons my favorite game that I worked on in all my time there” Siegler told me via e-mail. “I’m glad the game is being revived. If I could have chosen just one game from my years at Apogee/3DR to be revived, it would be this one for sure.”

I asked him what it was like seeing something he worked on nearly two decades ago remade and re-imagined. “I know several of the old levels were used as inspiration for the new levels by the ROTT 2013 mappers. One of them told me that one of my old levels has a sequel (of sorts) in the game, and that they copied the initial room of my version of the map from ROTT ’95 in the new version. So in that regard, it’s an honor to me that they’d think one of my designs was worthy enough to be picked up ‘as is’ and redone.”

He also appreciates Interceptor’s approach to keeping classic elements of the game in the remake, even when they are completely “unnecessary” in the modern age of video games. “I like that they took pains to include bits from the old game that don’t really need to be here anymore. Remember the silver discs? In the old game, we called them “Gravitational Anomaly Discs” (or just GADs). They existed because as you recall, the old Rise of the Triad was technically using the same game engine as Wolfenstein 3D. Very enhanced, mind you, but still, it had those limitations.

“One of the programmers came up with this idea that while we couldn’t create true room over room stuff, we could suspend things in the air, and create stairwells and things like that. So the GADs were born. 2013 game tech doesn’t have these limitations (heck, 1996 game tech didn’t), but the inclusion of the GADs in ROTT 2013 is a nice throwback. There is no technical need for them to be there, but they’ve gone through a lot to maintain as much of the old feel as they could. I like that.”

I unfortunately haven’t had a chance to play the new Rise of the Triad since QuakeCon last year (though I’m hoping to change that very soon), but every time I’ve seen new stuff, it seems to be moving in the right direction. It comes out July 31 for the extremely reasonable price of $15, complete with online multiplayer, a map editor and all that awesome stuff. The game will also be at this year’s QuakeCon on August 1-4, so you can try it there for free if you just want to see what the fuss is about.

If you played the original back in the day, I think this game would have to be pretty atrocious for that not to sound like a good deal. Still, I’m hoping it lives up to the Apogee name, because I want to remain prideful of the local legacy.

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